The present invention relates to ball traps used in heat exchanger cleaning system and, in particular, it concerns blocking elements for ball trap screens that enhances the movement of the cleaning ball through the ball trap.
It is known collect the cleaning balls use to clean closed fluid flow systems such as heat exchangers in a ball trap and then drawn from the ball trap into a ball collection chamber. Ball traps may be configured at to extend from the main flow pipe at substantially any angle.
Currently it is increasingly popular to utilize a ball trap that extends from the main fluid flow pipe at a 90° angle, such a ball trap is commonly referred to as a “T” type ball trap (10 in the drawings).
Such ball traps are generally configured with a screen or sieve element 100 that extends from the inlet opening 12 of the “T” into the ball trap itself.
The present inventors have found that the “T” type balls traps currently in use are ineffectual at collecting all of the cleaning balls in the system. That is to say, the fluid flow patterns in the “T” type ball traps currently in use cause some of the cleaning balls to congregate in regions of the screen from which they are not drawn out of the ball trap into the ball collection chamber.